


At the Hearth of Estre

by Luzula



Category: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Diary/Journal, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21818068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: Today I heard of a strange man who has walked into Erhenrang empty-handed, with only the clothes on his back (and strange clothes they were). He claims to be an ambassador from another world, though he speaks our language. His name, he says, is Genly Ai.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 49
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	At the Hearth of Estre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LJ_McKay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJ_McKay/gifts).



> I am grateful to karanguni for the beta!

I sit before the fire in the Hearth of Estre. Having told my story to Esvans and Sorve Harth and brought Therem's last journals home, they opened Estre's library to me. It would be a wealth to a researcher of the Ekumen, but I can't be that now. 

Rows of his journals, his whole life. The first day I just look at them standing in the shelves, then leave. I don't want to pry into his mind, his private history, no matter that we touched minds, and in a way, I was closer to him than anyone else in my life. There's still so much I don't know about him. What was his relationship to his brother, Arek, whom he heard in my mind-speech? And to his kemmering, Foreth rem ir Osboth? The whole universe of his thoughts and feelings, which are now gone. 

In the end, I allow myself one look. I tell myself it is only to hear his voice again, and that I will not pry into his relationships with others. I will read of when I first came to Gethen, and how we first met. Perhaps it will let me understand something of that time, of how he could trust me while I understood nothing of him. 

***

Eps Susmy, Erhenrang

Today I heard of a strange man who has walked into Erhenrang empty-handed, with only the clothes on his back (and strange clothes they were). He claims to be an ambassador from another world, though he speaks our language. His name, he says, is Genly Ai. 

Those who have met him say he is indeed strange, but from another world? They find it difficult to credit. The kyoremmy today was awash with rumors and hinted allegations. In other words, an ordinary day in the kyoremmy. 

But nevertheless the stranger has changed things by his very existence, even if people do not believe him. The kyoremmy did not talk today of the feud between the Hanve and Soth Domains that is now in its tenth year, nor of speculations regarding the probable intent of Orgoreyn's Commensals. We were all forced, however briefly and suspiciously, to consider our ignorance, and I cannot but approve. 

And what a name. Genly could perhaps be one of our names, but Ai! It sounds like a cry of pain, like the cry a foreteller makes when he wrenches knowledge from the dark. 

And he gives no Domain name, though surely his home must be somewhere more specific than the stars. If indeed he is an alien. 

I must meet this man. 

***

Arhad Susmy, Erhenrang

Today I have met him. He is taller and darker than most, dressed in hieb and trousers like an ordinary man. Though in rather more layers, as if he were cold in the mild autumn. 

I have no doubt that he is an alien. I could not reason this out - any individual detail might well be explained by other means, but still I know beyond proof that it is true. If the hunch that the Foretellers have tamed sometimes comes to the rest of us, if only in brief flashes of intuition, this must surely be one of those times. 

He told me openly of his mission: that he is an envoy not from a world, but from the Ekumen, a league of worlds that associate freely, to exchange between them knowledge. Goods, too, sometimes, but the distances do not lend themselves to trading in bulk. I asked, of course, if information would not take as long to travel. He told me that he could transmit it instantaneously and explained about what he called his ansible. 

Asked what the purpose of this league of worlds is, he says: "the augmentation of the complexity and intensity of the field of intelligent life". 

His words pierce my heart. Was it for this that I left the Fastness, for this that I joined the kyoremmy? I had thought I was ambitious before, to shape government and hope that by doing so I could acheive more more good than bad. But what I aspire to now would cast a shadow such as few could match: to bring Karhide, no, the whole of Gethen, into that league of worlds. 

I tell him that I will consider his words, and that I look forward to speaking with him again. 

***

Netherhad Susmy, Erhenrang

I dreamed this night of the Hearth of Estre in Kerm land, glowing like a star in the deepest cold of winter. And far away, several days' journey over the white snow that separates us, the lights of the neighboring Hearths. 

My dreaming mind is only too clear. But Hearths are not stars, no matter how isolated they feel in winter, and Karhide is not the Ekumen. In Karhide, neighboring Hearths are close enough to be enemies, rivals for the same land. 

In the Ekumen, the Envoy said, forays would be impossible and fruitless over such immense distances. These worlds are not neighbors. They are strangers to each other, and treat each other with the hospitality that strangers are due. 

Is this perhaps why I trust him? Because I am closer to my upbringing in Kerm land, where strangers are still received with open hands? This is not always so in Erhenrang, which I know to my sorrow. 

I met him again today. We spoke further of the Ekumen, of Karhide, of how those who doubt might be convinced. He offered himself and the things he had brought with him for examination. I will set up appointments with the court physicians and with reputable engineers, to present their results to the kyoremmy and to the king. Then perhaps we can get somewhere. 

I do not know how much he understands of the situation here, and of how to best reach his goal. Since he came here knowing our language, I presume that is not all he knows. In any case, I cannot treat him like a child with no shadow--he is the Envoy of a great civilization. Neither must I think that we on Gethen are less than they are, despite their superior technology. We must meet as equals or we will not meet at all. 

***

I close the book. Would anything have gone differently, if I had trusted him then? Perhaps not, in the larger sense. Tibe would have risen in the kyoremmy still, and Therem would still have been declared a traitor. We might have left for Orgoreyn together instead of separately. Perhaps with our combined efforts, we might have persuaded the Commensality to join the Ekumen. Or perhaps not. Perhaps we would both have been sent to a Farm together. 

It is impossible to say. But I cannot regret our journey across the ice together. It changed me in ways that I struggle to define. I do not know if it changed him, except in his relationship with me. After all, he was used to sledging in winter, to the cold, to starving. 

I only regret the journey's end, with an ache that I believe will never entirely fade. But I hear him often in my mind, such that reading his journal was, in the end, almost unnecessary. It is the way of mindspeech, that we recall the voice and the manner of those who speak to us in that way more vividly. I will always carry him with me.


End file.
